The US and Latin America

2026 Lecture Week 4 PPT - The U.S. in Latin America 

Week 4 LECTURE 2025

( song lyrics to accompany lecture)

PPT for CC class

Questions

• What explains the US’s persistent involvement in Latin American politics?
• How did US involvement in Latin America change over time? Why?
• Was there a gap between the aims of the US and the results? Why (or why not)?
• Do you think that political or economic influence was more significant? (or did this change over time/ place - e.g. think about your "adopted" country)?

RD Seminar Slides

Required Reading

Primary sources:

• Monroe, James, “Seventh Annual Message to Congress” or The Monroe Doctrine, 1823, The Platt Amendment, 1903 and the Roosevelt Corollary, 1905, National Archives
• The Platt Amendment, 1903
• Galeano, Eduardo, The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. trans. Cedrick Belfrage, Monthly Review Press (New York, 1973), Chapter 5, The Contemporary Structure of Plunder

• Danielle Scalise, "Eduardo Galeano's Criticism of his "Open Veins" Taken Lightly", October 19 2016, Panorama Scholarly Platform, University of Pittsburgh.

Further Reading

Primary Sources:

Martí, José. Selected Writings, Penguin Publishing Group, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/warw/detail.action?docID=6074495.

Martí, José. Our America, available in several translations online.

Secondary Sources:

• Guardino, Peter, The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War, (Cambridge, 2017)
• Grandin, Greg, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, (London, 2010)
• Grandin, Greg, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic, (New York, 2007)
• Lafeber, Walter, Inevitable Revolutions: The US in Central America, Norton (New York, 1993), Introduction and chapters 1-2.
• Long, Tom. Latin America Confronts the United States: Asymmetry and Influence. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
• McPherson, Alan. Invaded: How Latin Americans and Their Allies Fought and Ended U.S. Occupations, Oxford University Press, 2013. 
• Pastor, Robert, Whirlpool: US Foreign Policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean, Princeton University Press (Princeton, 1992).
• Pearce, Jenny, Under the Eagle: Us Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean, South End Press (London, 1982), part I.
• Smith, Peter, Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of US-Latin American Relations, Oxford University Press (Oxford, 1996), chapters 1-3.